Search results for: Computer program

Authors: Mairwen K. Jones, Lynne Harris, Lisa D. Vaccaro

Abstract:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common and disabling condition. Therapist-delivered treatments that use exposure and response prevention have been found to be very effective in treating OCD, although they are costly and associated with high rates of attrition. Effective treatments that can be made widely available without the need for therapist contact are urgently needed. This case study represents the first published investigation of a self-administered cognitive treatment for OCD in a 50-year old female with a 20 year history of OCD. The treatment evaluation occurred over 27 weeks, including 12 weeks of self-administration of the Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy (DIRT) program. Decreases of between 23% to 33% on measures from pre-treatment to follow-up were observed. Bearing in mind the methodological limitations associated with a case study, we conclude that the results reported here are encouraging and indicate that further research effort evaluating the effectiveness of self-administered DIRT is warranted.

Keywords: Anxiety Treatment, Cognitive Therapy, Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy, Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder, Self- Administered Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy.

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Authors: C de Almeida, I. M. Dal Fabbro

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The Brazilian Agricultural Products Wholesale Market fits well as example of residues generating system, reaching 750 metric tons per month of total residues, from which 600 metric tons are organic material and 150 metric tons are recyclable materials. Organic material is basically composed of fruit, vegetables and flowers leftovers from the products commercialization. The recyclable compounds are generate from packing material employed in the commercialization process. This research work devoted efforts in carrying quantitative analysis of the residues generated in the agricultural enterprise at its final destination. Data survey followed the directions implemented by the Residues Management Program issued by the agricultural enterprise. It was noticed from that analysis the necessity of changing the logistics applied to the recyclable material collecting process. However, composting process was elected as the organic compounds destination which is considered adequate for a material composed of significant percentage of organic matter far higher than wood, cardboard and plastics contents.

Keywords: Composting, environment, recycling, solid waste.

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Authors: Yudhajit Datta, Jonathan Bandi, Ankit Sethia, Hamsi Iyer

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Motion Tracking and Stereo Vision are complicated, albeit well-understood problems in computer vision. Existing softwares that combine the two approaches to perform stereo motion tracking typically employ complicated and computationally expensive procedures. The purpose of this study is to create a simple and effective solution capable of combining the two approaches. The study aims to explore a strategy to combine the two techniques of two-dimensional motion tracking using Kalman Filter; and depth detection of object using Stereo Vision. In conventional approaches objects in the scene of interest are observed using a single camera. However for Stereo Motion Tracking; the scene of interest is observed using video feeds from two calibrated cameras. Using two simultaneous measurements from the two cameras a calculation for the depth of the object from the plane containing the cameras is made. The approach attempts to capture the entire three-dimensional spatial information of each object at the scene and represent it through a software estimator object. In discrete intervals, the estimator tracks object motion in the plane parallel to plane containing cameras and updates the perpendicular distance value of the object from the plane containing the cameras as depth. The ability to efficiently track the motion of objects in three-dimensional space using a simplified approach could prove to be an indispensable tool in a variety of surveillance scenarios. The approach may find application from high security surveillance scenes such as premises of bank vaults, prisons or other detention facilities; to low cost applications in supermarkets and car parking lots.

Keywords: Kalman Filter, Stereo Vision, Motion Tracking, Matlab, Object Tracking, Camera Calibration, Computer Vision System Toolbox.

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Authors: Maruful H. Mazumder, Raymond I. Gilbert

Abstract:

The design specifications for calculating development and lapped splice lengths of reinforcement in concrete are derived from a conventional empirical modelling approach that correlates experimental test data using a single mathematical equation. This paper describes part of a recently completed experimental research program to assess the effects of different structural parameters on the development length requirements of modern high strength steel reinforcing bars, including the case of lapped splices in large-scale reinforced concrete members. The normalized average bond stresses for the different variations of anchorage lengths are assessed according to the general form of a typical empirical analytical model of bond and anchorage. Improved analytical modelling equations are developed in the paper that better correlate the normalized bond strength parameters with the structural parameters of an empirical model of bond and anchorage.

Keywords: Bond stress, Development length, Lapped splice length, Reinforced concrete.

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Authors: T.C.Manjunath, C. Ardil

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This paper deals with the development of a Jacobean model for a 4-axes indigenously developed scara robot arm in the laboratory. This model is used to study the relation between the velocities and the forces in the robot while it is doing the pick and place operation.

Keywords: SCARA, Jacobean, Tool Configuration Vector, Computer Control , Visual Basic , Interfacing , Drivers,

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Authors: Ririn Dewi Cahyani, Muh. Hisjam, Wahyudi Sutopo, Kuncoro Harto Widodo

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Availability of raw materials is important for Indonesia as a furniture exporting country. Teak log as raw materials is supplied to the furniture industry by Perum Perhutani (PP). PP needs to involve carbon trading for nature conservation. PP also has an obligation in the Corporate Social Responsibility program. PP and furniture industry also must prosecute the regulations related to ecological issues and labor rights. This study has the objective to create the relationship model between supplier and manufacturer to fulfill teak log demand that involving teak forest carbon sequestration. A model is formulated as Goal Programming to get the favorable solution for teak log procurement and support carbon sequestration that considering economical, ecological, and social aspects of both supplier and manufacturer. The results show that the proposed model can be used to determine the teak log quantity involving carbon trading to achieve the seven goals to be satisfied the sustainability considerations.

Keywords: Availability of teak log, support carbon sequestration, goal programming, sustainability consideration.

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Authors: R. Sharma, M. Gopal

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Markov games can be effectively used to design controllers for nonlinear systems. The paper presents two novel controller design algorithms by incorporating ideas from gametheory literature that address safety and consistency issues of the 'learned' control strategy. A more widely used approach for controller design is the H∞ optimal control, which suffers from high computational demand and at times, may be infeasible. We generate an optimal control policy for the agent (controller) via a simple Linear Program enabling the controller to learn about the unknown environment. The controller is facing an unknown environment and in our formulation this environment corresponds to the behavior rules of the noise modeled as the opponent. Proposed approaches aim to achieve 'safe-consistent' and 'safe-universally consistent' controller behavior by hybridizing 'min-max', 'fictitious play' and 'cautious fictitious play' approaches drawn from game theory. We empirically evaluate the approaches on a simulated Inverted Pendulum swing-up task and compare its performance against standard Q learning.

Keywords: Fictitious Play, Cautious Fictitious Play, InvertedPendulum, Controller, Markov Games, Mobile Robot.

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Authors: V. Goremikins, K. Rocens, D. Serdjuks

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Suspended cable structures are most preferable for large spans covering due to rational use of structural materials, but the problem of suspended cable structures is initial shape change under the action of non-symmetrical load. The problem can be solved by increasing of relation of dead weight and imposed load, but this methods cause increasing of materials consumption.Prestressed cable truss usage is another way how the problem of shape change under the action of non-symmetrical load can be fixed. The better results can be achieved if we replace top chord with cable truss with cross web. Rational structure of the cable truss for prestressed cable truss top chord was developed using optimization realized in FEM program ANSYS 12 environment. Single cable and cable truss model work was discovered.Analytical and model testing results indicate, that usage of cable truss with the cross web as a top chord of prestressed cable truss instead of single cable allows to reduce total displacements by 13-16% in the case of non-symmetrical load. In case of uniformly distributed load single cable is preferable.

Keywords: Cable trusses, Non-symmetrical load, Cable truss models, Vertical displacements

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Authors: Rujijan Vichivanives, Kittiya Poonsilp, Canasanan Wanavijit

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This research aims to create mobile tools to analyze rice disease quickly and easily. The principle of object-oriented software engineering and objective-C language were used for software development methodology and the principle of decision tree technique was used for analysis method. Application users can select the features of rice disease or the color appears on the rice leaves for recognition analysis results on iOS mobile screen. After completing the software development, unit testing and integrating testing method were used to check for program validity. In addition, three plant experts and forty farmers have been assessed for usability and benefit of this system. The overall of users’ satisfaction was found in a good level, 57%. The plant experts give a comment on the addition of various disease symptoms in the database for more precise results of the analysis. For further research, it is suggested that image processing system should be developed as a tool that allows users search and analyze for rice diseases more convenient with great accuracy.

Keywords: Rice disease, analysis system, mobile application, iOS operating system.

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Authors: Vanessa Vasconcelos, Mariza A. S. Bigonha

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Understanding and using the functional paradigm is a challenge for many programmers. Looking for logical errors in code may take a lot of a developer’s time when a program grows in size. In order to facilitate both processes, this paper presents HaskellFL, a tool that uses fault localization techniques to locate a logical error in Haskell code. The Haskell subset used in this work is sufficiently expressive for those studying Functional Programming to get immediate help debugging their code and to answer questions about key concepts associated with the functional paradigm. HaskellFL was tested against Functional Programming assignments submitted by students enrolled at the Functional Programming class at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and against exercises from the Exercism Haskell track that are publicly available in GitHub. This work also evaluated the effectiveness of two fault localization techniques, Tarantula and Ochiai, in the Haskell context. Furthermore, the EXAM score was chosen to evaluate the tool’s effectiveness, and results showed that HaskellFL reduced the effort needed to locate an error for all tested scenarios. The results also showed that the Ochiai method was more effective than Tarantula.

Keywords: Debug, fault localization, functional programming, Haskell.

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Authors: Lars Steiner, Zahra Ahmadi

Abstract:

Public housing is a vital factor in community development. Successful city, housing and eco system regeneration design is essential in providing positive community development. This concerns work places, nice dwellings, providing premises for child care, care of the elderly, providing qualitative premises for different kinds of commercial service, providing a nice built environment and housing areas and not the least activating tenants. The public housing companies give value to society by stimulating people, renovating socially and economically sustainable as well as being partners to local business and authorities. By their activities the housing companies contribute to sustainable local and regional growth and the identity and reputation of cities. A Social, Economic and Ecological Reputation Effect (SEERE) model for actions to promote housing and community reputation is presented. The model emphasizes regenerative actions to restore natural eco systems as part of housing renewal strategies and to strengthen municipality reputation.

Keywords: Community Development, Image and Reputation, Public Housing, Renewal Strategies.

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Authors: Walenty Oniszczuk

Abstract:

The use of buffer thresholds, blocking and adequate service strategies are well-known techniques for computer networks traffic congestion control. This motivates the study of series queues with blocking, feedback (service under Head of Line (HoL) priority discipline) and finite capacity buffers with thresholds. In this paper, the external traffic is modelled using the Poisson process and the service times have been modelled using the exponential distribution. We consider a three-station network with two finite buffers, for which a set of thresholds (tm1 and tm2) is defined. This computer network behaves as follows. A task, which finishes its service at station B, gets sent back to station A for re-processing with probability o. When the number of tasks in the second buffer exceeds a threshold tm2 and the number of task in the first buffer is less than tm1, the fed back task is served under HoL priority discipline. In opposite case, for fed backed tasks, “no two priority services in succession" procedure (preventing a possible overflow in the first buffer) is applied. Using an open Markovian queuing schema with blocking, priority feedback service and thresholds, a closed form cost-effective analytical solution is obtained. The model of servers linked in series is very accurate. It is derived directly from a twodimensional state graph and a set of steady-state equations, followed by calculations of main measures of effectiveness. Consequently, efficient expressions of the low computational cost are determined. Based on numerical experiments and collected results we conclude that the proposed model with blocking, feedback and thresholds can provide accurate performance estimates of linked in series networks.

Keywords: Blocking, Congestion control, Feedback, Markov chains, Performance evaluation, Threshold-base networks.

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Authors: Müzeyyen Balçikanli, Erdoğan Özbay, Hakan Tacettin Türker, Okan Karahan, Cengiz Duran Atiş

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In this research, effect of curing time (TC), curing temperature (CT), sodium concentration (SC) and silicate modules (SM) on the compressive strength, chloride ion permeability, and water absorption capacity of alkali activated slag (AAS) concretes were investigated. For maximization of compressive strength while for minimization of chloride ion permeability and water absorption capacity of AAS concretes, best possible combination of CT, CTime, SC and SM were determined. An experimental program was conducted by using the central composite design method. Alkali solution-slag ratio was kept constant at 0.53 in all mixture. The effects of the independent parameters were characterized and analyzed by using statistically significant quadratic regression models on the measured properties (dependent parameters). The proposed regression models are valid for AAS concretes with the SC from 0.1% to 7.5%, SM from 0.4 to 3.2, CT from 20 °C to 94 °C and TC from 1.2 hours to 25 hours. The results of test and analysis indicate that the most effective parameter for the compressive strength, chloride ion permeability and water absorption capacity is the sodium concentration.

Keywords: Alkali activation, slag, rapid chloride permeability, water absorption capacity.

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Authors: Chunghan Li, Chang-Shyh Peng, Daisy F. Sang

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Augmented Reality is an application which combines a live view of real-world environment and computer-generated images. This paper studies and demonstrates an efficient Augmented Reality development in the mobile Android environment with the native Java language and Android SDK. Major components include Barcode Reader, File Loader, Marker Detector, Transform Matrix Generator, and a cloud database.

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Android.

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Authors: Mehdi Tatari

Abstract:

Finding the interpolation function of a given set of nodes is an important problem in scientific computing. In this work a kind of localization is introduced using the radial basis functions which finds a sufficiently smooth solution without consuming large amount of time and computer memory. Some examples will be presented to show the efficiency of the new method.

Keywords: Radial basis functions, local interpolation method, closed form solution.

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Authors: Ventzas Dimitrios, Petropoulos George

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The paper presents a compressor anti-surge control system, that results in maximizing compressor throughput with pressure standard deviation reduction, increased safety margin between design point and surge limit line and avoiding possible machine surge. Alternative control strategies are presented.

Keywords: Anti-surge, control, compressor, PID control, safety, fault tolerance, start-up, ESD.

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Authors: Kittisak Kerdprasop, Nittaya Kerdprasop

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The problem of frequent pattern discovery is defined as the process of searching for patterns such as sets of features or items that appear in data frequently. Finding such frequent patterns has become an important data mining task because it reveals associations, correlations, and many other interesting relationships hidden in a database. Most of the proposed frequent pattern mining algorithms have been implemented with imperative programming languages. Such paradigm is inefficient when set of patterns is large and the frequent pattern is long. We suggest a high-level declarative style of programming apply to the problem of frequent pattern discovery. We consider two languages: Haskell and Prolog. Our intuitive idea is that the problem of finding frequent patterns should be efficiently and concisely implemented via a declarative paradigm since pattern matching is a fundamental feature supported by most functional languages and Prolog. Our frequent pattern mining implementation using the Haskell and Prolog languages confirms our hypothesis about conciseness of the program. The comparative performance studies on line-of-code, speed and memory usage of declarative versus imperative programming have been reported in the paper.

Keywords: Frequent pattern mining, functional programming, pattern matching, logic programming.

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Authors: Sheetal Chavan, P. J. Kulkarni, Vivek Shanbhag

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Although achieving zero-defect software release is practically impossible, software industries should take maximum care to detect defects/bugs well ahead in time allowing only bare minimums to creep into released version. This is a clear indicator of time playing an important role in the bug detection. In addition to this, software quality is the major factor in software engineering process. Moreover, early detection can be achieved only through static code analysis as opposed to conventional testing. BugCatcher.Net is a static analysis tool, which detects bugs in .NET® languages through MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) inspection. The tool utilizes a Parser based on Finite State Automata to carry out bug detection. After being detected, bugs need to be corrected immediately. BugCatcher.Net facilitates correction, by proposing a corrective solution for reported warnings/bugs to end users with minimum side effects. Moreover, the tool is also capable of analyzing the bug trend of a program under inspection.

Keywords: Dependence, Early solution, Finite State Automata, Grammar, Late solution, Parser State Transition Diagram, StaticProgram Analysis.

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Authors: Elysia Barker, Jian Guo Zhou, Ling Qian, Steve Decent

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A method of modelling topography used in the simulation of riverbeds is proposed in this paper which removes the need for datapoints and measurements of a physical terrain. While complex scans of the contours of a surface can be achieved with other methods, this requires specialised tools which the proposed method overcomes by using fractional Brownian motion (FBM) as a basis to estimate the real surface within a 15% margin of error while attempting to optimise algorithmic efficiency. This removes the need for complex, expensive equipment and reduces resources spent modelling bed topography. This method also accounts for the change in topography over time due to erosion, sediment transport, and other external factors which could affect the topography of the ground by updating its parameters and generating a new bed. The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is used to simulate both stationary and steady flow cases in a side-by-side comparison over the generated bed topography using the proposed method, and a test case taken from an external source. The method, if successful, will be incorporated into the current LBM program used in the testing phase, which will allow an automatic generation of topography for the given situation in future research, removing the need for bed data to be specified.

Keywords: Bed topography, FBM, LBM, shallow water, simulations.

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Authors: Zhen Chen, Haitao Zhang, Weiyong Ying, Dingye Fang

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The direct synthesis process of dimethyl ether (DME) from syngas in slurry reactors is considered to be promising because of its advantages in caloric transfer. In this paper, the influences of operating conditions (temperature, pressure and weight hourly space velocity) on the conversion of CO, selectivity of DME and methanol were studied in a stirred autoclave over Cu-Zn-Al-Zr slurry catalyst, which is far more suitable to liquid phase dimethyl ether synthesis process than bifunctional catalyst commercially. A Langmuir- Hinshelwood mechanism type global kinetics model for liquid phase DME direct synthesis based on methanol synthesis models and a methanol dehydration model has been investigated by fitting our experimental data. The model parameters were estimated with MATLAB program based on general Genetic Algorithms and Levenberg-Marquardt method, which is suitably fitting experimental data and its reliability was verified by statistical test and residual error analysis.

Keywords: alcohol/ether fuel, Cu-Zn-Al-Zr slurry catalyst, global kinetics, slurry reactor

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Authors: M. Hari Prabhu

Abstract:

This paper is based on the performance of the Switched Reluctance Motor (SRM) drives using Z-Source Inverter with the simplified rule base of Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) with the output scaling factor (SF) self-tuning mechanism are proposed. The aim of this paper is to simplify the program complexity of the controller by reducing the number of fuzzy sets of the membership functions (MFs) without losing the system performance and stability via the adjustable controller gain. ZSI exhibits both voltage-buck and voltage-boost capability. It reduces line harmonics, improves reliability, and extends output voltage range. The output SF of the controller can be tuned continuously by a gain updating factor, whose value is derived from fuzzy logic, with the plant error and error change ratio as input variables. Then the results, carried out on a four-phase 6/8 pole SRM based on the dSPACEDS1104 platform, to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the devised methods and also performance of the proposed controllers will be compared with conventional counterpart.

Keywords: Fuzzy logic controller, scaling factor (SF), switched reluctance motor (SRM), variable-speed drives.

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Authors: A. Shebani, C. Pislaru

Abstract:

The wear measuring and wear modelling are fundamental issues in the industrial field, mainly correlated to the economy and safety. Therefore, there is a need to study the wear measurements and wear estimation. Pin-on-disc test is the most common test which is used to study the wear behaviour. In this paper, the pin-on-disc (AEROTECH UNIDEX 11) is used for the investigation of the effects of normal load and hardness of material on the wear under dry and sliding conditions. In the pin-on-disc rig, two specimens were used; one, a pin is made of steel with a tip, positioned perpendicular to the disc, where the disc is made of aluminium. The pin wear and disc wear were measured by using the following instruments: The Talysurf instrument, a digital microscope, and the alicona instrument. The Talysurf profilometer was used to measure the pin/disc wear scar depth, digital microscope was used to measure the diameter and width of wear scar, and the alicona was used to measure the pin wear and disc wear. After that, the Archard model, American Society for Testing and Materials model (ASTM), and neural network model were used for pin/disc wear modelling. Simulation results were implemented by using the Matlab program. This paper focuses on how the alicona can be used for wear measurements and how the neural network can be used for wear estimation.

Keywords: Wear measuring, Wear modelling, Neural Network, Alicona.

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Authors: Iman Zangeneh, Mostafa Moradi, Ali Mokhtarbaf

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The necessity of ever-increasing use of distributed data in computer networks is obvious for all. One technique that is performed on the distributed data for increasing of efficiency and reliablity is data rplication. In this paper, after introducing this technique and its advantages, we will examine some dynamic data replication. We will examine their characteristies for some overus scenario and the we will propose some suggestion for their improvement.

Keywords: data replication, data hiding, consistency, dynamicdata replication strategy

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Authors: Y. Z. Wu, Z. Dong, S. K. You

Abstract:

Global approximation using metamodel for complex mathematical function or computer model over a large variable domain is often needed in sensibility analysis, computer simulation, optimal control, and global design optimization of complex, multiphysics systems. To overcome the limitations of the existing response surface (RS), surrogate or metamodel modeling methods for complex models over large variable domain, a new adaptive and regressive RS modeling method using quadratic functions and local area model improvement schemes is introduced. The method applies an iterative and Latin hypercube sampling based RS update process, divides the entire domain of design variables into multiple cells, identifies rougher cells with large modeling error, and further divides these cells along the roughest dimension direction. A small number of additional sampling points from the original, expensive model are added over the small and isolated rough cells to improve the RS model locally until the model accuracy criteria are satisfied. The method then combines local RS cells to regenerate the global RS model with satisfactory accuracy. An effective RS cells sorting algorithm is also introduced to improve the efficiency of model evaluation. Benchmark tests are presented and use of the new metamodeling method to replace complex hybrid electrical vehicle powertrain performance model in vehicle design optimization and optimal control are discussed.

Keywords: Global approximation, polynomial response surface, domain decomposition, domain combination, multiphysics modeling, hybrid powertrain optimization

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Authors: Tholokuhle T. Ntshakala, Seraphin D. Eyono Obono

Abstract:

Nations are still finding it quite difficult to win mega sport competitions despite the major contribution of sport to society in terms of social and economic development, personal health, and in education. Even though the world of sports has been transformed into a huge global economy, it is important to note that the first step of sport is usually its introduction to children at school through physical education or PE. In other words, nations who do not win mega sport competitions also suffer from a weak and neglected PE system. This problem of the neglect of PE systems is the main motivation of this research aimed at examining the factors affecting the perceived awareness of physical education teachers on the ICTs that are adoptable for the teaching and learning of physical education. Two types of research objectives will materialize this aim: relevant theories will be identified in relation to the analysis of the perceived ICT awareness of PE teachers and subsequent models will be compiled and designed from existing literature; the empirical testing of such theories and models will also be achieved through the survey of PE teachers from the Camperdown magisterial district of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The main hypothesis at the heart of this study is the relationship between the demographics of PE teachers, their behavior both as individuals and as social entities, and their perceived awareness of the ICTs that are adoptable for PE, as postulated by existing literature; except that this study categorizes human behavior under performance expectancy, computer attitude, and social influence. This hypothesis was partially confirmed by the survey conducted by this research in the sense that performance expectancy and teachers’ age, gender, computer usage, and class size were found to be the only factors affecting their awareness of ICTs for physical education.

Keywords: Human Behavior, ICT Awareness, Physical Education, Teachers.

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Authors: T. Holden, G. Tremberger, Jr, E. Cheung, R. Subramaniam, R. Sullivan, N. Gadura, P. Schneider, P. Marchese, A. Flamholz, T. Cheung, D. Lieberman

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A nucleotide sequence can be expressed as a numerical sequence when each nucleotide is assigned its proton number. A resulting gene numerical sequence can be investigated for its fractal dimension in terms of evolution and chemical properties for comparative studies. We have investigated such nucleotide fluctuation in the 16S rRNA gene of archaea thermophiles. The studied archaea thermophiles were archaeoglobus fulgidus, methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus, methanocaldococcus jannaschii, pyrococcus horikoshii, and thermoplasma acidophilum. The studied five archaea-euryarchaeota thermophiles have fractal dimension values ranging from 1.93 to 1.97. Computer simulation shows that random sequences would have an average of about 2 with a standard deviation about 0.015. The fractal dimension was found to correlate (negative correlation) with the thermophile-s optimal growth temperature with R2 value of 0.90 (N =5). The inclusion of two aracheae-crenarchaeota thermophiles reduces the R2 value to 0.66 (N = 7). Further inclusion of two bacterial thermophiles reduces the R2 value to 0.50 (N =9). The fractal dimension is correlated (positive) to the sequence GC content with an R2 value of 0.89 for the five archaea-euryarchaeota thermophiles (and 0.74 for the entire set of N = 9), although computer simulation shows little correlation. The highest correlation (positive) was found to be between the fractal dimension and di-nucleotide Shannon entropy. However Shannon entropy and sequence GC content were observed to correlate with optimal growth temperature having an R2 of 0.8 (negative), and 0.88 (positive), respectively, for the entire set of 9 thermophiles; thus the correlation lacks species specificity. Together with another correlation study of bacterial radiation dosage with RecA repair gene sequence fractal dimension, it is postulated that fractal dimension analysis is a sensitive tool for studying the relationship between genotype and phenotype among closely related sequences.

Keywords: Fractal dimension, archaea thermophiles, Shannon entropy, GC content

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Authors: Nagore Guerra Bilbao, Clemente Lobato Fraile

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Mentoring is provided by professionals with a higher level of experience and competence as part of the professional development of a university faculty. This paper explores the characteristics of the mentoring provided by those teachers participating in the development of an active methodology program run at the University of the Basque Country: to examine and to analyze mentors’ performance with the aim of providing empirical evidence regarding its value as a lifelong learning strategy for teaching staff. A total of 183 teachers were trained during the first three programs. The analysis method uses a coding technique and is based on flexible, systematic guidelines for gathering and analyzing qualitative data. The results have confirmed the conception of mentoring as a methodological innovation in higher education. In short, university teachers in general assessed the mentoring they received positively, considering it to be a valid, useful strategy in their professional development. They highlighted the methodological expertise of their mentor and underscored how they monitored the learning process of the active method and provided guidance and advice when necessary. Finally, they also drew attention to traits such as availability, personal commitment and flexibility in. However, a minority critique is pointed to some aspects of the performance of some mentors.

Keywords: Higher education, Mentoring, Professional development, University teachers.

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Authors: Amira M. Attia, Karim H. Youssef, Nabil H. Abbasy

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Energy consumption schedule (ECS) technique shifts usage of loads from on peak hours and redistributes them throughout the day according to residents’ operating time preferences. This technique is used as form of indirect control from utility to improve the load curve and hence its load factor and reduce customer’s total electric bill as well. Similarly, load shifting technique achieves ECS purposes but as direct control form applied from utility. In this paper, ECS is simulated twice as optimal constrained mathematical formula, solved by using CVX program in MATLAB^® R2013b. First, it is utilized for single residential building with ten apartments to determine max allowable energy consumption per hour for each residential apartment. Then, it is used for single apartment with number of shiftable domestic devices, where operating schedule is deduced using previous simulation output results as constraints. The paper ends by giving differences between ECS technique and load shifting technique via literature and simulation. Based on results assessment, it will be shown whether using ECS or load shifting is more beneficial to both customer and utility.

Keywords: Energy consumption schedule, load shifting technique, comparison.

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Authors: N. Bolong, J. Makinda, I. Saad

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Laboratory activities have produced benefits in student learning. With current drives of new technology resources and evolving era of education methods, renewal status of learning and teaching in laboratory methods are in progress, for both learners and the educators. To enhance learning outcomes in laboratory works particularly in engineering practices and testing, learning via handson by instruction may not sufficient. This paper describes and compares techniques and implementation of traditional (expository) with open-ended laboratory (problem-based) for two consecutive cohorts studying environmental laboratory course in civil engineering program. The transition of traditional to problem-based findings and effect were investigated in terms of course assessment student feedback survey, course outcome learning measurement and student performance grades. It was proved that students have demonstrated better performance in their grades and 12% increase in the course outcome (CO) in problem-based open-ended laboratory style than traditional method; although in perception, students has responded less favorable in their feedback.

Keywords: Engineering education, open-ended laboratory, environmental engineering lab.

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Authors: Tri Sulistyaningtyas, Yani Suryani, Dana Waskita, Linda Handayani Sukaemi, Ferry Fauzi Hermawan

Abstract:

The enthusiasm of foreigners studying the Indonesian language by Foreign Speakers (BIPA) was documented in a sitcom "International Class". Tone and stress when they speak the Indonesian language is unique and different from Indonesian pronunciation. By using the Praat program, this research aims to describe prosodic Indonesian language which is spoken by ‘International Class” actors consisting of Abbas from Nigeria, Lee from Korea, and Kotaro from Japan. Data for the research are taken from the video sitcom "International Class" that aired on Indonesian television. The results of this study revealed that pitch movement that arises when pronouncing Indonesian sentences was up and down gradually, there is also a rise and fall sharply. In terms of stress, respondents tend to contain a lot of stress when pronouncing Indonesian sentences. Meanwhile, in terms of temporal structure, the duration pronouncing Indonesian sentences tends to be longer than that of Indonesian speakers.

Keywords: Melodic structure, temporal structure, prosody, experimental phonetics, international class.

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